Spatial Energy

Paul WisemanMidland Reporter-Telegram

Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, March 6, 2010

For decades oilfield companies have used photos taken from above in planning, in checking pipelines and for other uses. In recent years the source of those images has changed from small planes to satellites, and the data available has increased dramatically.

Spatial Energy, which provides satellite and aerial images to the oil patch, started out as the oil and gas division of the largest satellite imagery provider in the world, Digital Globe, according to founder and president Bud Pope. "What we found was that we couldn't service our customers just dealing with one satellite provider, so we spun out that division and we became a consolidator of all the relevant commercial satellites globally," Pope recalled.

What is available today is much more than pictures, Pope noted. "Our data goes all the way from four-band to 128-band hyperspectral data." Because objects absorb and reflect light differently at different wavelengths, spectral data helps users identify such information as soil type and vegetation health, down to differentiating between species of tree or shrub.

Vegetation health is important, said Pope, because most of Spatial Energy's clients are producers who use the data for environmental impact evaluation. If vegetation health is deteriorating, it could indicate a spill or leak of toxic substances.

Customer surveys show that all of them use the data to see what is on the surface and, in particular, what has changed. Half of their customers use it for seismic planning, to help with the layout of shot receiver points. Also about half use the data to monitor facilities, progress of construction, encroachment and related issues. Another use is for geologic mapping-determining soil types, lithology and other data to try to extrapolate subsurface structures. Total use comes to more than 100 percent because clients may use the data for six to eight different purposes.

Some pipeline companies use the photos to look for leaks, a duty that used to fall to pilots flying small planes at low altitudes, using a camera to record problems. "This (satellite imagery) is a lot faster and much safer," Pope said. This is another instance in which spectral photography, which monitors changes in vegetation, may give information sooner than a surface shot. Pipeline leakage could soak into the soil and affect plants and animals for weeks before puddles or black marks appear on the surface.

Pipeline monitoring has just become practical in the last year or so, said Pope. "Before, satellites were best at getting north-to-south swaths. Now they can do east-west as well."

One of the company's first images, Pope recalled, was of the "Wink Sink," the sinkhole that opened up in 1980 in Winkler County between Wink and Kermit. The purpose was to monitor the hole's stability. "For awhile there, I didn't think the mayor of Wink would be able to serve out his term," laughed Pope, thinking the hole might swallow the town.

The company supplies data for 34 geologic basins in North America and around the world, including the Permian Basin. They recently added 19 new basins, including Marcellus, Horn River and Eagle Ford in North America and, internationally, South Iraq and North Caspian.

While specializing in satellite imagery, Spatial Energy's data also includes aerial photography dating back as far as a 1938 shot of a California location. Current data includes 2008-2009, with the possibility of getting daily data coming soon.

Images are becoming more and more detailed. Last year, satellites could get clear images within 25 meters without computer enhancement. Now, said Pope, they can get within 3-5 meters.

How close they get in the future is a matter of economics, because getting an image within 10 centimeters is actually possible, and is done by military satellites, but it is much more costly. "You could put up a satellite that would get data within 10 centimeters, but it would fall out of the sky in a year," said Pope, because it would have to be closer to the Earth to get those images, and no commercial company is willing to spend the money to launch a satellite with that short a life.

So for right now, real-time monitoring of workers on a remote rig is not practical-but that could change in a few years.